If Richard Martel wins next week and does so in a fairly convincing fashion (Greater Than 5%) it will lend a lot of credibility to the polling showing that the CPC is becoming the alternative to the Liberals in Quebec (Likely Rural Quebec and Quebec City only but still) and the CPC in second even if a distance second is strong progress in the Province.

It will also provide some clarity into if the Bernier situation will play a factor for the CPC in Quebec.

its tough to say what will happen there on Monday , the poll is promising but I don't really have a good feel for what is going on in the riding

the fact trudeau is visiting the riding so late , would lead some to speculate the liberals weren't doing as well as in 2015

the cpc will surely come in 2nd no matter what , as ndp and bloc aren't in a good position to do as well as past years

There are a few simple takeaways from tonight;
The Liberals shouldn't lose this riding, their primary rivals were the NDP whose support within the Province has largely flowed to them.

If the CPC wins its showing that at a minimum Scheer is taking the approach to rural Quebec seriously.
If the CPC finishes in a strong second same as above;

If the LPC walks away with this then there is some credibility to the blow back with sparing with Bernier or Quebec simply isnt interested in the CPC.

( I've been watching the results come in and it appears the cpc candidate Richard Martel has won rather easily , 52 % cpc , 29 lib , 9 ndp , 5 bloc , 3 green although turnout has been rather low , with conservatives only voters who appeared motivated enough to actually vote )

Federal Conservative candidate Richard Martel won a byelection in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, Que., on Monday, taking a seat away from the ruling Liberals.

The Conservatives won handily, with 52.7 per cent of the vote to the Liberal's 29.5 per cent.

The byelection has seen a near total collapse of the New Democrat vote. The party attracted just 8.7 per cent of the vote. The NDP won the riding with 37.7 per cent of the vote in 2011 and narrowly lost in 2015 with 29.7 per cent.

The Bloc Québécois and Green candidates were not in contention, capturing just 5.6 per cent and 3.1 per cent of the vote respectively.

'The Conservatives are close to the people'

The Conservatives recruited Martel to take back one of two seats snatched by the Liberals in federal byelections since 2015. As former coach of the local major junior hockey team, the Saguenéens de Chicoutimi, Martel is well-known and well-liked in the riding.

"This victory belongs to you all," he told a crowd of cheering supporters chanting "Richard! Richard!"

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, right, and Martel chat as they carry food at the famous Boivin cheese counter last week in Saguenay, Que. (Jacques Boissinot/Canadian Press)

Martel said the fact that he started campaigning earlier than the other candidates helped him win.

"The Conservatives right now ... are an option for Quebecers because the Conservatives are close to the people," he said.

Critical of marijuana legislation

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's support for the region's aluminum smelting industry amid the trade dispute with the U.S. and his tough stance with President Donald Trump have not gone unnoticed in the byelection race, but Martel proved to have the local star power.

In a video message, Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer, speaking in French, said he was looking forward to welcoming Martel to Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

"On behalf of the Conservative caucus, I would like to congratulate Richard Martel on his victory in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord. Residents can count on Richard to defend the region's interests and to be a strong advocate in Ottawa," Scheer said in a separate statement.

Since announcing his intention to run for the Conservative Party, Martel has criticized the Liberal government for how it's handled the public purse and for quickly pushing through its bill to legalize recreational marijuana.

He also criticized the Bloc Québécois, saying it hasn't defended Quebecers' interests. The former head of the Bloc Québécois, Michel Gauthier, came out in support of Martel.

His Liberal opponent, Lina Boivin, a local businesswoman who is less well-known in the area, failed to hold the seat for the Liberals. Denis Lemieux won the seat in 2015 but stepped down last year for what he said were family reasons.

In a meeting with riding residents last week, Boivin urged them to vote for Trudeau's party as a way to protect workers, especially those in the aluminum, forestry and supply-managed agriculture sectors.

Changeable riding

The seat has flipped between the Bloc Québécois, the NDP and the Liberals since 2000.

Lemieux won the riding in 2015 in a close contest with his New Democratic opponent, Dany Morin, taking the seat with 31.1 per cent of the vote to Morin's 27.9.

Morin took the riding in the 2011 federal election when Jack Layton's Orange Wave swept most of the seats in the province. He won Chicoutimi-Le Fjord from the Bloc Québécois's Robert Bouchard with 39.1 per cent of the vote to Bouchard's 28.8.

The Liberals have managed to turn two Conservative ridings red since coming to office in 2015.

The first was Lac-Saint-Jean, where Richard Hébert, a popular local candidate, won the seat formerly held by Conservative MP Denis Lebel in October.

Hébert won the riding with 38.6 per cent of the vote — an improvement on the 33.3 per cent Lebel secured when he took the riding narrowly in the 2015 federal election.

In December, the Liberals won the B.C. seat of South Surrey-White Rock away from the Conservatives when Gordie Hogg secured 47.5 per cent of the vote over Conservative rival Kerry-Lynne Findlay, who came away with 42.1 per cent of the vote.

Turning the byelection tide

This time, however, the Conservative candidate managed to turn a Liberal seat blue for the first time since the last federal election.

A recent Segma Recherche/Le Quotidien-Radio-Canada poll proved close to the mark. Martel was the favourite, with 48.5 per cent support compared with 26.7 per cent for Boivin. (The survey was conducted by telephone interviews, using randomly selected landlines and cellphones, of 402 people from June 7 to 12. That sample size suggests a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 per cent, 19 times out of 20.)

The sample size in the poll was relatively small and riding-level surveys have been hit-or-miss in the past. But high-profile candidates have been known to make waves in local contests

During his campaign, Dubois vowed to be a strong voice for the region in the House of Commons. "I've had the chance to bring forward ideas to find solutions to the problems that affect people in the region," he said.

Catherine Bouchard-Tremblay, candidate for the embattled Bloc Québécois, scored 8.7 per cent in the poll.

Yes, the Conservatives had a popular hockey coach as candidate, but their thumping of the Liberals in Chicoutimi-Le Ford, Monday night, should worry the Grits.

Canadian voters are not rallying to the Liberals in solidarity as Justin Trudeau confronts Donald Trump over tariffs and trade.

If that confrontation damages the economy, watch out. Next year could be some general election.

The by-election result sends another important signal: The federal New Democrats are dying in Quebec. For them, next year could be a rout.

A caveat: Over-interpreting by-election results is a chronic failing of pundits. Often, local circumstances trump national trends. In Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, the Tories snagged Richard Martel, coach of the fabled Chicoutimi Saguenéens.

But then, the Conservatives were able to get him, weren’t they? Andrew Scheer has been campaigning hard in Quebec, wooing nationalist-but-not-separatist voters whom so many Conservative leaders have courted before him.

The riding, in the Saguenay region north of Quebec City, tends to follow political tides. Reliably Liberal under Pierre Trudeau, reliably Conservative under Brian Mulroney, reliably Bloc Quebecois in most elections between 1993 and 2011, when it became part of the NDP Orange Wave.

In the last federal election, the Liberals edged past the NDP by exactly 600 votes, with the Conservatives running a distant fourth. When MP Denis Lemieux stepped down for family reasons, odds favoured the Liberals holding on to this recent gain.

But Mr. Martel’s popularity resulted in a huge swing, sending the Conservatives from fourth to first, with 53 per cent of the vote to the Liberals’ 29 per cent, and the NDP from second to fourth, at a shocking 9 per cent.

So even as all national party leaders rallied behind Mr. Trudeau in his confrontation with Mr. Trump over tariffs, the voters in Chicoutimi dumped the Liberals for the Tories. And the trade dispute matters there more than almost anywhere. The region has four aluminum smelters, representing a third of Canada’s aluminium production. The local economy could suffer severely, if the Americans’ new 10 per cent tariff on aluminium imports starts to bite.

That's why it's important not to misinterpret the sudden surge in approval ratings for Mr. Trudeau, who is up six percentage points to 50 per cent approval in an Ipsos poll released Monday.

“I think most Canadians felt a sense of unfairness and outrage and have rallied behind the PM,” said Ekos pollster Frank Graves, in an exchange. “Whether this a temporary wag-the-dog respite or a more permanent recovery remains to be seen.”

That same Ipsos poll had the Conservatives slightly ahead of the Liberals in popular support.

Yes, an angered nation unites in support of the Liberal government’s retaliatory, dollar-for-dollar counter tariffs, as Ottawa struggles to contain the damage inflicted by a thuggish president.

But if the NAFTA talks collapse or the Americans impose tariffs on auto imports, either of which would badly damage the Canadian economy, that unity will dissolve.

Conservatives would demand that the Liberals cut the best available NAFTA deal, to stave off the worst of that damage. New Democrats would demand government support for laid-off workers. And voters would punish the Liberals, despite their best efforts to protect the national interest.

The Saguenay, which could be reeling from tariff-induced layoffs, would lash out. The Conservatives rather than the Liberals could pick up the NDP-held riding of Jonquiere, next door to Chicoutimi-Le Fjord. They could also take Manicouagan to the east , currently held by the Bloc Quebecois, which is also in danger of extinction.

Elsewhere, the Liberals will probably make gains at the NDP’s expense, especially around Montreal.

For the NDP, Monday’s result is a disaster. Clearly, Jagmeet Singh is not resonating with Quebec voters. At this point, a year and a half before the next election, party strategists have to ask themselves: What can be saved?

The political situation at the federal level has become remarkably ambiguous. Donald Trump threatening Canada with a trade war. Doug Ford bringing populism to Ontario politics. The Liberals and Conservatives essentially tied in popularity. And now a by-election that suggests the NDP may vanish from Quebec.

Mr. Trudeau, Mr. Scheer, and Mr. Singh should enjoy as much of the summer as they can. This time next year, a most interesting pre-election campaign will already be well underway.

looking at the numbers it appears the conservatives won the by election , by being able to get there base out to vote ( by election total is oddly similar to what they got in 2011 when they came in 3rd ) and some extra votes from Martel's personal popularity .

cpc 2011 - 12,881 , 2015 - 7270 , 2018 - 12,580

lib 2011- 2852 , 2015 - 13,619 , 2018 - 7032

ndp 2011 - 19,430 , 2015 - 13,019 , 2018 - 2065

bloc 2011 - 14,675 , 2015 - 8990 , 2018 - 1337

green 2011 - 780 , 2015 - 907 , 2018 - 736

looking at the numbers only the cpc and green vote held during the by election , liberals held close to the same % of the vote but fewer actual voters , many ndp and bloc voters appear to have not voted in the by election.

whats also interesting is voter turnout peaked in the riding in 2011 ( 65 % turnout ) , the year the ndp won but they have been unable to bring many of those voters back out to the polls , in 2015 only 54 % came out and in by election was around 36 %

Tory by-election landslide in Quebec more than a local race
JOHN IBBITSON
OTTAWA
PUBLISHED 2 HOURS AGO
UPDATED JUNE 19, 2018

Yes, the Conservatives had a popular hockey coach as candidate, but their thumping of the Liberals in Chicoutimi-Le Ford, Monday night, should worry the Grits.

Canadian voters are not rallying to the Liberals in solidarity as Justin Trudeau confronts Donald Trump over tariffs and trade.

If that confrontation damages the economy, watch out. Next year could be some general election.

The by-election result sends another important signal: The federal New Democrats are dying in Quebec. For them, next year could be a rout.

A caveat: Over-interpreting by-election results is a chronic failing of pundits. Often, local circumstances trump national trends. In Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, the Tories snagged Richard Martel, coach of the fabled Chicoutimi Saguenéens.

But then, the Conservatives were able to get him, weren’t they? Andrew Scheer has been campaigning hard in Quebec, wooing nationalist-but-not-separatist voters whom so many Conservative leaders have courted before him.

The riding, in the Saguenay region north of Quebec City, tends to follow political tides. Reliably Liberal under Pierre Trudeau, reliably Conservative under Brian Mulroney, reliably Bloc Quebecois in most elections between 1993 and 2011, when it became part of the NDP Orange Wave.

In the last federal election, the Liberals edged past the NDP by exactly 600 votes, with the Conservatives running a distant fourth. When MP Denis Lemieux stepped down for family reasons, odds favoured the Liberals holding on to this recent gain.

But Mr. Martel’s popularity resulted in a huge swing, sending the Conservatives from fourth to first, with 53 per cent of the vote to the Liberals’ 29 per cent, and the NDP from second to fourth, at a shocking 9 per cent.

So even as all national party leaders rallied behind Mr. Trudeau in his confrontation with Mr. Trump over tariffs, the voters in Chicoutimi dumped the Liberals for the Tories. And the trade dispute matters there more than almost anywhere. The region has four aluminum smelters, representing a third of Canada’s aluminium production. The local economy could suffer severely, if the Americans’ new 10 per cent tariff on aluminium imports starts to bite.

That's why it's important not to misinterpret the sudden surge in approval ratings for Mr. Trudeau, who is up six percentage points to 50 per cent approval in an Ipsos poll released Monday.

“I think most Canadians felt a sense of unfairness and outrage and have rallied behind the PM,” said Ekos pollster Frank Graves, in an exchange. “Whether this a temporary wag-the-dog respite or a more permanent recovery remains to be seen.”

That same Ipsos poll had the Conservatives slightly ahead of the Liberals in popular support.

Yes, an angered nation unites in support of the Liberal government’s retaliatory, dollar-for-dollar counter tariffs, as Ottawa struggles to contain the damage inflicted by a thuggish president.

But if the NAFTA talks collapse or the Americans impose tariffs on auto imports, either of which would badly damage the Canadian economy, that unity will dissolve.

Conservatives would demand that the Liberals cut the best available NAFTA deal, to stave off the worst of that damage. New Democrats would demand government support for laid-off workers. And voters would punish the Liberals, despite their best efforts to protect the national interest.

The Saguenay, which could be reeling from tariff-induced layoffs, would lash out. The Conservatives rather than the Liberals could pick up the NDP-held riding of Jonquiere, next door to Chicoutimi-Le Fjord. They could also take Manicouagan to the east , currently held by the Bloc Quebecois, which is also in danger of extinction.

Elsewhere, the Liberals will probably make gains at the NDP’s expense, especially around Montreal.

For the NDP, Monday’s result is a disaster. Clearly, Jagmeet Singh is not resonating with Quebec voters. At this point, a year and a half before the next election, party strategists have to ask themselves: What can be saved?

The political situation at the federal level has become remarkably ambiguous. Donald Trump threatening Canada with a trade war. Doug Ford bringing populism to Ontario politics. The Liberals and Conservatives essentially tied in popularity. And now a by-election that suggests the NDP may vanish from Quebec.

Quebec is where the opportunity is, and it seems likely that the Liberals will try to appeal to an anti-Trump reaction. This should be easy!!!

I take what paulaedjit said about Bernier seriously, but I wonder if the demonization of Maxime isn't the wonderful work of the dairy industry? But there are other people.

If Conservatives distilled a new partnership within the organization of the party itself, it would be doing something! If it expressed a new willingness to genuinely partner, as deux peuples, everything would be possible.

1) Voter Turnout for a By-Election was high, no where near a general but quite high none the less.

2) The amount of votes Martel secured on lesser turn out was nearly as many votes as Denis Lemieux secured to win the riding during the general.

3) The NDP is toast in Quebec. They got rid of Mulcair and will effectively trade 16 Seats in Quebec for potentially one on Ontario. Yikes.

4) The Tories had a rockstar candidate who had the nomination for a long time, but they were able to attract a rockstar candidate which is potentially good news. The CPC has usually been good at attracting local mayors and regional politicians to the fray. If they can run a slate of candidates like that in rural Quebec it could net a lot of seats.

Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives are not going to allow Justin Trudeau to rebuild a Liberal fortress in Quebec without a fight: that’s just one of the messages from Monday’s Chicoutimi-Le Fjord’s byelection upset. And some of the other messages — in particular for the New Democrats — are more alarming than others.

But first some essential electoral geography pertaining to the Quebec riding where 53 per cent of voters turned their backs on Trudeau, trading a seat on the government benches for a Conservative one on Monday.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, right, and Chicoutimi-Le Fjord candidate Richard Martel ate poutine at the famous Boivin cheese counter in Saguenay last week. Martel won the seat in a byelection on Monday.

In the last federal election, every party won some of its Quebec seats in tight four-way battles. Had a small fraction of the vote dispersed differently, Chicoutimi-Le Fjord could just as easily have ended up in the opposition column.

Among the Quebec ridings the Liberals won on election night 2015, they registered their second lowest share of the vote in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord.

Six other Liberal seats in the province — including that of Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos — are in the same fragile category.

Monday’s byelection results suggest the four-way splits observed in Quebec in 2015 will not be a feature of next year’s general election. That’s a fact the Liberals (and also the Conservatives) will have to factor in their calculations.

Chicoutimi-Le Fjord also has a fickle history. It changed federal allegiance in five of the seven last general elections. The Tories, the Bloc, the Liberals and the NDP have all had turns at representing the riding. Before 2015, the Liberals had last held the seat during Jean Chrétien’s last term in office. It was less than a full embrace of the party itself. At the time, voters essentially followed floor-crossing MP André Harvey from the Tories to the Liberals.

To score a win on Monday, Scheer did not reinvent the wheel. He borrowed a page from Brian Mulroney’s handbook and made overtures to nationalist voters fleeing the Bloc’s civil war. And, like Stephen Harper often did before him, Scheer recruited a candidate whose local popularity stood to make up for his own lack of Quebec coattails.

Over the past month, newly elected MP Richard Martel — a former hockey coach — introduced his leader to Chicoutimi voters rather than the reverse.

At 5.6 per cent, the Bloc Québécois score is the kind of result the party typically registers in staunchly federalist territory, not in a nationalist region like the Saguenay. That score offers the feuding federal sovereignists a glimpse at their non-existent political future should they insist on going in next year’s general election campaign as a house divided.

Scheer can only hope the Bloc remains in its current death spiral, as the Conservatives are best placed to continue to benefit from its demise. The Quebecers who stuck by the BQ in the last election may be the least likely to switch to a Liberal party led by someone whose last name is Trudeau. And if they were not tempted the Jack Layton’s NDP, they are unlikely to be wooed by Jagmeet Singh.

The New Democrats, who slipped from a close second place in 2015 to a miserable 8.7 per cent share of the vote, have seen their worse fears confirmed. The party’s hard-earned Quebec footprint is fading fast.

The Liberals had expected to benefit from the NDP collapse. That did not happen. Their share of the vote remained relatively stable with a variation of less than two per cent from the general election. But turnout was down from 66 per cent to 36 per cent. A lot of voters stayed home on Monday.

As Chicoutimi-Le Fjord went this week, Quebec will not necessarily go next year.

But there are lasting take-aways from this week’s vote.

With a less-polarizing figure such as Scheer at the helm, it will be harder for the Liberals to rally Quebecers against the Conservatives. In Quebec, he will not suffer from comparisons to his unpopular predecessor. And, at least in this byelection, raising Harper’s ghost to spook voters did not do the trick.

By the same token, the Liberals are living dangerously by continuing to count almost exclusively on Trudeau’s star power to hold his home province. The prime minister campaigned in the Chicoutimi-Le Fjord and the government showered money on the region, all to little or no avail.

It may not be noticeable from inside the Parliament Hill bubble but, by comparison to both their Conservative and NDP rivals, Trudeau’s Quebec MPs lack presence in their province.

Almost three years in, the prime minister might as well be running a one-man show. That is particularly true outside Montreal.

Luckily for the Liberals, their next big byelection test will take place on the more friendly territory of Montreal’s Outremont riding. For Trudeau, the stakes in winning back Thomas Mulcair’s soon-to-be vacated seat have just gone up.

of those 65%, a mammoth 29% could not be bothered to vote, which is roughly the same number as those who did actually vote for Mr Martel ...

so extreme caution must be used in any attempt to extrapolate the apparent trends here ...

while the result is certainly pleasing on the face of it, i can't help feeling a bit disappointed ...

certainly there are some gains to be made in rural Quebec, but it will be a hard slog ...

nevertheless, i think that some lessons can be drawn from this result ...

this was a victory for Mr. Martel's "'team chicoutimi" but should not be misinterpreted as a green card or carte blanche for the franchise as a whole...

even so, other players would do well to study the methods behind this narrow victory ...

localism/regionalism is certainly an excellent strategy in this part of the world ...

even in this region the abstract threat of aluminum tariffs is trumped by the huge personal presence and clout of the dairy cartel ...

there is nothing to be gained from any conflict with them and there is everything to lose ...

i have no doubt that said cartel has thrown dirt at Mr Bernier ... which is to be expected in politics ... the real problem is if any of the dirt sticks ... and it doesn't matter if it is justified or not ... we all remember how successfully Harper was unjustly smeared :(

if truth be told he laid a lot of the groundwork for progress in Quebec and it is really too bad that he has to remain in the sidelines :(

anyway, belated congratulations to all those who did the difficult grassroots work here ! :)

1) Voter Turnout for a By-Election was high, no where near a general but quite high none the less.

2) The amount of votes Martel secured on lesser turn out was nearly as many votes as Denis Lemieux secured to win the riding during the general.

3) The NDP is toast in Quebec. They got rid of Mulcair and will effectively trade 16 Seats in Quebec for potentially one on Ontario. Yikes.

4) The Tories had a rockstar candidate who had the nomination for a long time, but they were able to attract a rockstar candidate which is potentially good news. The CPC has usually been good at attracting local mayors and regional politicians to the fray. If they can run a slate of candidates like that in rural Quebec it could net a lot of seats.

All good points, but the bigger point (for me) is that these conditions are probably reproduced in small-town Quebec all over the province, just as similar feelings exist in the rest of the country.

Didn't the last election confirm that the NDP's future in Quebec was precarious? The question is -- where will those voters go?

We should, by all means, get "rock stars" where they appear. But in politics, you want smart, determined people with loyalty to their region. And ideas, ideas that promise solutions to practical problems. You want to take it to the people, but you also want to represent those people, too. Exactly the ones you want to vote for you.

And it takes some money. It isn't all organization, though you can never discount that. But this success is as much an illustration of how little "pull" Liberals have in Quebec as it is. If I were a Quebecker, Justin Trudeau would be doubly embarrassing. It's bad enough that he's a Canadian ...

When we speak of 'organization' we mean putting the plans in the hands of paid professionals. And Quebec has to get its share, around a Quebec leader. That would be a big trust-building move. It means less central control.

It feels like things are falling apart for the Liberals. An exciting Quebec leader would be terrific ... and Conservatives addressing the issue of trust would be another.

If we recognize that 'we' aren't British anymore -- we're North Americans who speak English, just as 'they' aren't "French" anymore -- they are North Americans who speak French. And they want to keep speaking French, just as we don't want to speak French. Real story.

It really shouldn't be hard to work out a compact, a set of rules. Look at the country we have! Look at the future we could share. What stands in the way?

It's the Anglo idea of a 'post-national nation', the nation that has transcended kinship and tribal sensibilities, replacing it with multiculturalism meritocracy and Justice ... We have to adjust that paradigm a tad to allow for long-standing communities who have intermarried amongst themselves and been historical communities ... one that has lived essentially at peace (at least on its own terrtory) since 1763. Quebec is something unique in the world in that way.

If the Conservative Party could house that debate, they would have roots in the province of Quebec and would be building a country. That's the 'organization' we need.

1) Voter Turnout for a By-Election was high, no where near a general but quite high none the less.

2) The amount of votes Martel secured on lesser turn out was nearly as many votes as Denis Lemieux secured to win the riding during the general.

3) The NDP is toast in Quebec. They got rid of Mulcair and will effectively trade 16 Seats in Quebec for potentially one on Ontario. Yikes.

4) The Tories had a rockstar candidate who had the nomination for a long time, but they were able to attract a rockstar candidate which is potentially good news. The CPC has usually been good at attracting local mayors and regional politicians to the fray. If they can run a slate of candidates like that in rural Quebec it could net a lot of seats.

at this point I'd personally be surprised if all 15 of them run for re-election , some might retire/not run , even a defection to the liberals or bloc wouldn't really surprise me going forward , considering how poorly the ndp have been polling in quebec and done in the by elections

whats also interesting is most of there seats were bloc quebecois before they went ndp , only a couple of the 15 ridings have been liberal or cpc recently , ( both Abitibi ridings had been liberal for short periods around 2000 , Salaberry Suroit had been liberal in 2000 , Sherbrooke had been pc when Jean Charest in federal politics and Jonquiere had been cpc in 2006-2011 when Jean Pierre Blackburn a cabinet minister )

but most of there ridings have avoided voting for federalist parties other than the ndp

Richard Martel, left, eats poutine with Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer on June 14 in Saguenay, Que. Martel won Monday's federal byelection in Saguenay—Le Fjord with 52.7 per cent of the vote, compared to 29.5 per cent for the Liberals. (Jacques Boissinot/Canadian Press)

195 comments

In November, the Conservative brain trust in Quebec was searching high and low for a candidate to run in a byelection that hadn't even been called.

The Liberal MP of Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, Denis Lemieux, had just announced he was leaving politics. Veteran members of the Tories' Quebec caucus felt they could take the riding, which is located in and around Saguenay, about 200 kilometres north of Quebec City.

It was optimism that, at the time, bordered on magical thinking. The party, after all, finished in fourth place there in the 2015 election.

But Lemieux's departure was sudden and caught his party unaware. Tory MP Gerard Deltell was among those who believed his party had a shot if they got a jump on the campaign.

They just needed the right candidate.

Martel, speaking after his win Monday, is well known in Saguenay, Que., as the former coach of the local major junior hockey team. (Priscilla Plamondon Lalancette/Radio-Canada)

At a meeting in November, Deltell recalled Tuesday, someone came forward and said: "I know someone in Chicoutimi."

The speaker was Antoine Tardif, the party's little-known chief organizer in Quebec, who is being lauded for helping revive Conservative hopes in the province.

The name Tardif put forward was Richard Martel, popular among locals as the colourful former coach of Saguenay's major junior hockey team.

Tardif knew Martel from his own days as a goalie in the league, where he often had to face Martel's teams.

It was Tardif, according to a party source, who first called Martel and began the courting process. Within a month, and after some coaching by Deltell, Martel had launched his campaign.

On Monday, he delivered an upset victory for the party. It was the first time the Liberals have lost a byelection since Justin Trudeau took over as leader in 2013.

No shame in being a Tory anymore

Tardif eschews the limelight. He ducks most interview requests. But his wunderkind political resume is tough to ignore.

While studying economics and politics at McGill Uiversity, Tardif — 23 at the time — was elected mayor of his hometown of Daveluyville, Que. He beat an incumbent mayor with 66 per cent of the vote.

In 2015, he ran the federal election campaign of fellow small-town mayor Alain Rayes, who now serves as the Quebec lieutenant for Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer.

Tardif's time as Quebec organizer has coincided with a rise in the Conservative Party's fortunes in Quebec. They're polling between five and 10 points higher than in 2015, most recently around the 22 per cent mark.

While that's still well behind the Liberals, there is a sense the party is beginning to broaden its support beyond the small base it built during the Stephen Harper years.

Rayes and Tardif, with help from trusted old hands like Deltell, have helped soften the party's image, while perceived renegades such as the libertarian Maxime Bernier have been sidelined.

"If you go to your Christmas party and tell your family you're going to vote Conservative, nobody looks at you and really judges you anymore," said Carl Vallée, who worked as press secretary for former prime minister Harper.

He says the Conservatives "have become a little more mainstream. They've become more accepted and acceptable."

Chicoutimi—Le Fjord is an overwhelmingly francophone riding far from Montreal that's never been held by the modern version of the Conservative Party.

That the Conservative could win there, Vallée said, is a sign they can hope for growth in similar ridings come the next federal election.

A message to the Bloc

​The consolidation of the anti-Trudeau vote in Quebec behind the Tories has been helped, no doubt, by the woes of the Bloc Québécois and the NDP.

But the Conservatives have also carefully chosen issues that, while not major scandals, have grated on the nerves of their potential voters.

One recurring theme during the byelection campaign was Ottawa's insistence on pushing ahead with the legalization of marijuana, despite the reluctance of the Quebec government.

"The way they rushed that through as quickly as possible didn't go over well with people living in rural areas," Martel told Radio-Canada on Tuesday.

The marijuana question also allowed the Conservatives to repeat their promise to respect provincial jurisdictions, which they hope will continue to appeal to nationalists left homeless by the Bloc's collapse.

The Conservatives want those votes badly. They managed to convince Michel Gauthier, a former Bloc leader from the Saguenay area, to take out a party membership and stump for Martel.

"Michel Gauthier was a clear signal to Bloc supporters that said, 'OK, guys, time to move on to something else,'" said Deltell.

Factors beyond Conservative control

If the win gives the Tories the appearance of momentum in Quebec, their opponents have been quick to dismiss it as a freak occurrence.

Families Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, who represents a Quebec City riding, attributed the victory to Martel's local popularity.

Éric Dubois, the unsuccesful NDP candidate in Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, scoffed that Scheer "looked pretty small next to Martel." He suggested the vote was an endorsement more of the former coach's record than of Conservative polices.

Vallée, the former Harper adviser, acknowledged that maintaining momentum for the Conservatives will depend on factors outside their control.

"Things that help the incumbent usually happen on the international scene," said Vallée. Their support grows amid global turmoil because politics becomes about "Canadian unity and supporting whoever is in government."

What kind of events did Vallée have in mind?

"A major financial or, I don't know, a trade war with Donald Trump," he said.

another interest aspect of the Chicoutimi by election , it was the first time the liberals had to defend one of the many new ridings they won in 2015 and they failed miserably . although they did manage close to the same % of the vote they got in 2015 , the actual number of voters was much lower

it leads me to wonder how "solid " are some of the other 2015 liberal gains ? a lot of these ridings 2015 was the only election in recent memory that the riding voted liberal ,

although there is a number of ridings that in 2011 went cpc or ndp but normally vote liberal and came back to the liberals in 2015 and now held by rookie mp's , I look thru the list of mp's from Ontario and some of them I can't recall ever seeing in parliament or on tv , Sonia Sidhu from Brampton south , never heard of her ? same for the other 4 rookie liberal mp's from Brampton ? or James Maloney from Etobicoke Lakeshore never seen him speak in parliament or Neil Ellis from Bay of Quinte seems to be hidden deep in the backbenches

using Winnipeg as an example , the liberals will have to defend 6 ridings where rookie mp's were elected in 2015 , James Carr who is in cabinet and holds a relatively safe liberal riding ( Winnipeg South centre ) would seem to have a significant advantage ,

but the other 5 mp's are rather unknown and low profile and represent ridings that have historically been cpc like Kildonan St Paul or ndp like Winnipeg Centre and were liberal wins are few and mostly only happen during great years for the party , Terry Duguid mp for Winnipeg south had lost 3 times previously in Winnipeg before he won the open riding of Winnipeg south in 2015

If you cast your mind back to the last election, Justin gathered a lot of support on the basis of being a breath of fresh air who charmed the girls ... what I call "the food court" people.

Everything was good but Justin said it colld be so much greater. He promised to double and triple the Conservative 'baby bonuses' and to go into debt just a little bit to get a more dynamic, job-creating economy. And besides, he was just so much fun ...

He won power because he attracted more voters to the polls. This is where his good looks and ersatz celebrity came into play.

He has turned out to be the kind of guy who can't take care of his own kids without two nannies ... a bumbler ... which might be OK most of the time, when not much is changing. Suddenly, we have entered the Age of Trump and that charming boyishness began to look like bewildered weakness.

It's easy for that "food court" vote to disappear.

Now there are important issues at stake and we have a leader who has no idea what to do. The Liberal have no plan. I think their own ideology is the only thing that prevented a quick deal between Canada and the USA. But the Liberals actually started by mobilizing opinion in the US against Trump. Good luck with that. Trump is the guy we're actually negotiating with. It's just not smart.

From now on, they will do what they need to do to stay in power. Nobody knows what is really happening, but it appears that we are bugling out way into a trade war. If this results in higher prices and fewer jobs, Trudeau will become like the dumber version of Kathleen Wynne ... she went out like Gloria Swanson ... Trudeau will go out like PeeWee Herman.

There is still time to do the smart thing. Give Trump his quick victory to save the auto pact. Buy back the quota. It's like buying our way out of an expensive obligation. It's that simple. For the good of the country.

I think this is what dominates politics for ordinary Canadians at the moment. Scheer is in a tough spot. He doesn't want to undermine whatever efforts the Liberals are making at the moment. But he should be distancing himself from his identity as the Dairy Industry's choice for leader of the CPC.

All good points, but the bigger point (for me) is that these conditions are probably reproduced in small-town Quebec all over the province, just as similar feelings exist in the rest of the country.

Didn't the last election confirm that the NDP's future in Quebec was precarious? The question is -- where will those voters go?

We should, by all means, get "rock stars" where they appear. But in politics, you want smart, determined people with loyalty to their region. And ideas, ideas that promise solutions to practical problems. You want to take it to the people, but you also want to represent those people, too. Exactly the ones you want to vote for you.

You and I are largely in alignment here by way of what we consider "rock stars".
In Quebec its different than anywhere else, local mayors, regional counselors, former MNAs are the rock stars.

I think you just need to take nominations more seriously;
The old expression goes that all politics are local, that goes triple for Quebec.

There is a reason why CPC MP Jacques Gourde can win his riding with more than 50% of the popular vote whole next door in Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel the Tories finish 4th.

That local feel is the key to rural Quebec.
Being able to get down to the grass roots and having a candidate in that riding that can connect.

Bugs wrote:

It feels like things are falling apart for the Liberals. An exciting Quebec leader would be terrific ... and Conservatives addressing the issue of trust would be another.

Sure,
Common sense is making a come back.

Since 2015, Manitoba pitched the NDP, Ontario pitched the Liberals, (Both in spectacular fashion), Saskatchewan re-elected the Saskatchewan Party w/ 62% of the popular vote, Quebec appears poised to elect a CAQ government, Alberta appears to have the UCP coming in next year, and BC is currently dealing with what happens when you have a NDP/Green Coalition.

Kathleen Wynne running on a campaign of being proud and unapologetic for unbalanced budgets and a massive debt should have been the canary in the coal mine for Trudeau and Co.

I think the idea of running as "prom king" isn't the approach that will work in 2019;
Voters appear to be tired of the Lib-splaining on the Economy and on why debt is awesome and higher taxes despite record government revenue are necessary.

Common sense regarding debt being bad and the Government not being terribly efficient at anything appear be to themes in recent elections.

I would imagine unless there is a huge issue which dominates the election, the LPC will need to change course if they want to win

Bugs wrote:

If we recognize that 'we' aren't British anymore -- we're North Americans who speak English, just as 'they' aren't "French" anymore -- they are North Americans who speak French. And they want to keep speaking French, just as we don't want to speak French. Real story.

I think that is very well said;
At the end of the day we are in this together and the divide between Canada and Quebec seems for the first time in decades potentially bridgeable.

Something like Energy East could go a long way in uniting East and West.

A truly shared control of our economic destinies where everyone benefits

Last edited by cosmostein on Wed Jun 20, 2018 1:08 pm; edited 1 time in total

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